Enhanced Piezoelectric Effect Derived from Grain Boundary in MoS₂ Monolayers

Recent discovery of piezoelectricity that existed in two-dimensional (2D) layered materials represents a key milestone for flexible electronics and miniaturized and wearable devices. However, so far the reported piezoelectricity in these 2D layered materials is too weak to be used for any practical applications. In this work, we discovered that grain boundaries (GBs) in monolayer MoS₂ can significantly enhance its piezoelectric property. The output power of piezoelectric devices made of the butterfly-shaped monolayer MoS₂ was improved about 50% by the GB-induced piezoelectric effect. The enhanced piezoelectricity is attributed to the additional piezoelectric effect induced by the existence of deformable GBs which can promote polarization and generates spontaneous polarization with different piezoelectric coefficients along various directions. We further made a flexible piezoelectric device based on the 2D MoS₂ with the GBs and demonstrated its potential application in self-powered precision sensors for in situ detecting pressure changes in human blood for health monitoring.